Jim Barton is finally harvesting a crop of hemp, the cannabis variety used in colonial times to make rope, sailcloth and other goods.
But the 80-year-old Kentucky farmer isn’t celebrating the successful drive to loosen marijuana laws that also moved Congress to allow pilot plots of his nonintoxicating version of the plant.
“Marijuana has always been the problem with hemp,” said Barton, taking a break from a green Deere combine on a farm outside Lexington. “Marijuana is a danger. Hemp is not.”
Confusion over the two plants has kept hemp-growing illegal in the U.S. for generations. As attitudes toward marijuana ease – voters in Washington, D.C., Alaska and Oregon on Nov. 4 became the latest to legalize it for recreational use – hemp has gained support for experimental legal cultivation. Success could help Kentucky farmers struggling with falling tobacco output and lower revenue from corn and soybeans.
While the size of a potential market is difficult to estimate, hemp’s uses are staggering: 25,000 possible products in agriculture and food, textiles, recycling, automotive, furniture, paper, construction materials and personal care, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Some farmers are also planning to market a strain for medicinal purposes and sell it across state lines.
While pot advocates remain some of hemp’s most vocal proponents, “there are stereotypes people want to walk away from,” said Anndrea Hermann, president of the Hemp Industries Association, which has no position on marijuana legalization.
“We have a lot of steps to take before we are really launched onto a mainstream scale,” she said.
Blurred lines between hemp and marijuana literally stunted Barton’s first crop, as a shipment of seeds was delayed by drug-enforcement officials, and this year’s planting got in later than desired, creating plants about half as tall as hoped.
Hemp was a major crop in the United States from colonial times until the mid-1800s, when other crops became more lucrative. Planting revived in World War II, peaking in 1943 after the Japanese takeover of the Philippines deprived the U.S. of its main fiber for ropes and parachutes.
Farmers, including Barton’s family, grew it at the urging of the government to help win the war.
The market collapsed afterward, as competitors regained market share and new types of fibers were developed. Legal restrictions also expanded with concern over marijuana use. Plantings disappeared altogether by the late 1950s.
